ENCOUNTER WITH EROS: - THE NEAR-EARTH ASTEROID RENDEZVOUS MISSI

John Creighton · 2004-11-26 17:46:31

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/ne … ...l2.html

Most asteroids reside in a broad belt between Mars and Jupiter, but a substantial number lie in orbits that bring them close to Earth. These are the "near-Earth asteroids," prime candidates for the origins of meteorites. Dynamicists who study the evolution of asteroid orbits believe that the near-Earth asteroids or NEAs are mostly pieces cast out of the main asteroid belt by the gravity of Jupiter, with some fraction of extinct comets.
By far the largest and most important of the near-Earth asteroids is 433 Eros, which accounts for over half the volume of all near-Earth asteroids. Eros orbits the sun at an average distance of 1.46 astronomical units (AU), and approaches to 1.13 AU at perihelion. It rotates once each 5.37 hours. As with Uranus a high axial inclination results in the asteroid lying nearly on its side. Eros is also one of the most elongated asteroids, with estimated dimensions of 35 x 15 x 13 kilometers. It is an S type but is known to be compositionally varied, with opposite sides having slightly different mineralogies.
Eros is the prime objective of the NEAR mission, scheduled for launch on February 16, 1996, aboard a 7925 Delta II from Cape Canaveral, Florida. NEAR is being built by The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and will be the first launch in NASA's Discovery Program. The spacecraft will swing by Earth for a gravity assist in January 1998, approach Eros in January 1999, and be injected into orbit to analyze Eros for nearly one year.
The most important scientific objectives of NEAR are (1) to characterize Eros' physical and geological properties; (2) to infer its elemental and mineralogical composition and variations; (3) to clarify the relationships between asteroids, comets, and meteorites; and (4) to further understanding of the formation and early evolution of the solar system.

John Creighton · 2004-11-26 18:27:04

I wonder how much carbon it has. It is an S type asteroid so it is probably mostly iron and silicon but it does say:

It is an S type but is known to be compositionally varied, with opposite sides having slightly different mineralogy.

What is the nearest C type asteroid? We should also send a mission to it.

John Creighton · 2004-11-26 22:12:19

http://earn.dlr.de/nea/database.htm]Near Earth Asteroid Database

patrick · 2004-11-26 22:22:54

How much C is in the Solar wind?

John Creighton · 2004-11-26 22:31:39

http://pdssbn.astro.umd.edu/missions/index.html]Small Body Missions

Most seem to go to commets. Especially Halley's commet.

patrick · 2004-11-26 22:32:37

I would think eons of solar wind material has collected on all of these asteroids and the carbon content should be about what the moons is.

John Creighton · 2004-11-26 22:33:01

http://near.jhuapl.edu/]Discovery is NEAR

I don't see any carbon peeks there but all the peaks look pretty small. Does that mean that EROS has quite a mix of ellements?

patrick · 2004-11-26 22:40:24

Can you burn a combination of these elements to get C???

GraemeSkinner · 2004-11-26 22:41:37

Do we know what the large peak is at 10keV from the outer detector? The graph from the inner detector also shows to good peaks at 10 and 35 keV.

Graeme

John Creighton · 2004-11-26 22:53:58

http://www.psi.edu/pds/archive/spectra.html]Spectra and Spectrophotometry

The link gives the spectrophotometry information for every known asteroids. I think most of the information is gathered from telescopes so it won't be as accurate. Oh well, I think this information could be used to help find C type asteroids. Not each asteroid is numbered based on the order it is discovered. To see which asteroid it is look at the NEO database.

John Creighton · 2004-11-26 23:08:59

The extension gives NEAR Shoemaker's gamma-ray spectrometer additional time to observe the elemental composition on and below Eros' surface, and the NEAR team at least two more opportunities to download this information through NASA's heavily used Deep Space Network of antennas.

The gamma-ray instrument can measure elemental composition to a depth of about 4 inches, and is much more sensitive on the surface than it was in orbit. Mission engineers fine-tuned the device last week to account for things it hadn't encountered in orbit; it operates at a higher temperature near the surface, for example, because it can no longer radiate heat into space

http://near.jhuapl.edu/news/flash/01feb23_1.html]2001 Feb 23 NEAR Mission Extended Through February 28

John Creighton · 2004-11-26 23:12:27

How much C is in the Solar wind?

That is more of a question for the genusis star dust mission thread.

http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic … 95]Genusis Goes Splat

http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic … 60]Genesis, Stardust, Etc.: Snag & Bag

John Creighton · 2004-11-26 23:19:42

Can you burn a combination of these elements to get C???

http://www.vigyanprasar.com/vipnet/jan2 … htm]Robert Boyle (1627-91)

But oxygen and hydrogen cannot be broken down further by chemical means and that is why they are called elements. They are not made of other elements. The word ‘element’ originates from the letters of the Latin alphabet: l,m,n, and t which are pronounced as ‘el’-‘em’-‘en’-‘te’ (in Latin it is ‘elementum'). By coining the word this way it was perhaps intended to emphasise as that words are composed of letters, different compounds can be represented as constituted by elements. However, there is no consensus on how the word element was adopted. In philosophy the word ‘element’ is used in a broader context.

Hint carbon is an element.

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#1 2004-11-26 17:46:31

Re: ENCOUNTER WITH EROS: - THE NEAR-EARTH ASTEROID RENDEZVOUS MISSI

#2 2004-11-26 18:27:04

Re: ENCOUNTER WITH EROS: - THE NEAR-EARTH ASTEROID RENDEZVOUS MISSI

#3 2004-11-26 22:12:19

Re: ENCOUNTER WITH EROS: - THE NEAR-EARTH ASTEROID RENDEZVOUS MISSI

#4 2004-11-26 22:22:54

Re: ENCOUNTER WITH EROS: - THE NEAR-EARTH ASTEROID RENDEZVOUS MISSI

#5 2004-11-26 22:31:39

Re: ENCOUNTER WITH EROS: - THE NEAR-EARTH ASTEROID RENDEZVOUS MISSI

#6 2004-11-26 22:32:37

Re: ENCOUNTER WITH EROS: - THE NEAR-EARTH ASTEROID RENDEZVOUS MISSI

#7 2004-11-26 22:33:01

Re: ENCOUNTER WITH EROS: - THE NEAR-EARTH ASTEROID RENDEZVOUS MISSI

#8 2004-11-26 22:40:24

Re: ENCOUNTER WITH EROS: - THE NEAR-EARTH ASTEROID RENDEZVOUS MISSI

#9 2004-11-26 22:41:37

Re: ENCOUNTER WITH EROS: - THE NEAR-EARTH ASTEROID RENDEZVOUS MISSI

#10 2004-11-26 22:53:58

Re: ENCOUNTER WITH EROS: - THE NEAR-EARTH ASTEROID RENDEZVOUS MISSI

#11 2004-11-26 23:08:59

Re: ENCOUNTER WITH EROS: - THE NEAR-EARTH ASTEROID RENDEZVOUS MISSI

#12 2004-11-26 23:12:27

Re: ENCOUNTER WITH EROS: - THE NEAR-EARTH ASTEROID RENDEZVOUS MISSI

#13 2004-11-26 23:19:42

Re: ENCOUNTER WITH EROS: - THE NEAR-EARTH ASTEROID RENDEZVOUS MISSI

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